A Necessary End
by She Who Loves Pineapples
Summary: People are just notes in a song, strokes in a painting, syllables in a poem. Individuals aren't supposed to matter in the grand scheme of things - the whole is what's important. So, Joshua can't admit he's losing himself inside his own creation. And Sanae can't admit to taking sides. Scenes from the beginning to the end of Joshua and Sanae's friendship.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Hello! I started writing this a long time ago, and then I figured I'd better finish it before Final Remix comes out and contradicts all my headcanon (probably too late, that's in five days. And I don't have and can't afford a Switch. I'm sad about it. Oh well.)**

 **Anyway, this is just going to be loosely-connected scenes showing the relationship between Joshua and Hanekoma. I've taken quite a few liberties with the previous "Composer", how each game differs with each composer, how Producers work, and other things. Even though a lot of my headcanon is a bit strange, I hope you enjoy the story.**

 **Trigger warning: contains themes of suicide in later chapters**

 **i**

It was a slow day today, both in terms of the Game and café business, but the Author of Shibuya wanted Sanae to stick around. She didn't like him to go home during Games, not even when the amount of Players had dwindled down to a number she could easily keep track of herself, because she didn't like too much flickering between planes. It made it difficult for her to see, she said. Her clairvoyance was centered on the Game, and extended to the lower planes only at the points where they intersected. The Author couldn't see the Higher Plane at all, and when he raised his vibe high enough to enter it, she couldn't see him. When he was in the Higher Plane she never knew when he would return, inevitably throwing off the cadence of the city when he did. Her Game was too delicate for that. Shibuya was a city that needed to be handled with precision; even the chaotic parts had been drawn that way intentionally. But there was a difference between a few exaggeratedly-bold strokes, and entire radicals appearing where they shouldn't have been. That was how she explained it to him, anyway – and though he wasn't enough of a calligrapher to see it the same way she did, he knew she had her reasons. "Shibuya's Soul is too strong and rebellious," she had explained over tea, decades ago, back when he was new to this and still getting homesick. "If my fingers make even the slightest of slips, the brush will slide in the wrong direction. You're an artist, so I'm sure you understand."

He understood well enough to respect her orders. He didn't have as much freedom as he would've liked, and he felt a bit isolated sometimes, as the only Angel in this plane of solitary souls, but it wasn't so bad. Shibuya was an interesting place, and there were plenty of interesting inhabitants to interact with.

Human or otherwise.

"Hey there, Marshmallow," he greeted, as the fluffy, rather large white cat slinked towards him. She mewed in response and brushed against his legs. He crouched down and she climbed onto his lap, digging her claws into his legs. "Brought somethin' for ya."

As if she understood him, the cat placed her front paws on his chest and poked her head into the plastic bag holding the food, so he dumped the bouillabaisse soup on the ground. Keeping her paws planted on his lap, the cat lowered her head to slowly lap it up. She didn't get fed bouillabaisse often, unless a customer didn't finish theirs. Usually he just fed the strays whatever baked goods had been out for more than a couple of days, but he was willing to be a bit more generous when they were pregnant.

"Can't be more than a couple of weeks now, can it?" he said to the cat, stroking her head. Not all cats would tolerate him trying to pet them while they were eating, but Marshmallow had been familiar with him since she was a kitten, and didn't react. A few months ago, Marshmallow's mother – Dusty, he'd called her, because of her gray coat – had been nesting in the same little corner between the power box and the fence, obscured by the stack of cardboard boxes piled nearby. But Dusty, like all stray cats eventually do, had disappeared, leaving her litter behind. Eventually Marshmallow, territorial as she was, had chased off all her littermates and most of the other strays that lived in the alley next to WildKat. Some of them still showed up around other parts of the neighborhood. Some of them didn't. Marshmallow was the only one who he could count on seeing around on a daily basis, at least for now.

As the cat lapped up the soup, Sanae took a moment to appreciate the scenery. The faintest tinges of pink were beginning to frame the clouds, and the cool breeze brushing past his skin signified the arrival of evening. A couple teenage girls were chattering frantically in the distance. Curious as he was, he couldn't help but listen in on their conversation.

"I don't understand! How are we supposed to use this thing?"

"I told you! Just point it at him and push the button!"

"Yeah, but how come the only thing we're allowed to say is 'koto'? Can't we say something else?"

"Just press it!"

…And it was a good thing he'd decided to keep an ear on this discussion. He could help them out, if necessary. He wasn't allowed to give too many hints about the mission, but he could give tips if there were technical difficulties.

"How come it's not working?"

"I dunno. Do you think he can hear it?"

"Well, he's not doing anything!"

"I think he has a guitar or something. I don't think that's a koto."

"Of course it's not, but what are we supposed to do about that!? If I _could_ make him think about the guitar I _would_ , but the only thing we can imprint is 'koto' because this _stupid pager isn't working_!" Peeking through a crack in the fence, he matched the voices to a pair of girls in white kimonos, one of whom was mashing buttons frantically while pointing the pager at a slightly younger boy who was walking a few steps ahead of them.

"Maybe you're supposed to, like, push it against his head or something," the calmer one suggested.

"Noo!" the other girl shrieked. Her protest was accompanied by another round of rapid button mashing. "That is the _stupidest_ idea I've ever heard of! Don't you know anything about pagers? You're supposed to – "

"Will you _stop that_?" the younger boy snapped, pivoting around to face straight towards the Players.

The girls gasped. Sanae raised his eyebrows and looked closer.

"Oh my god! You can see us?"

"Are you a Player, too?"

A huff. "If I was a Player, you wouldn't have been able to mentally bombard me with the word 'koto' over the past ten minutes. As it is, I assure you I've received your imprint loud and clear, so will you _please_ do me a favor and find someone else to bother?"

"Ummm…"

"Oh…"

A few moments of stunned silence. Sanae probably would have been in stunned silence, too. Obviously, this child was alive. Obviously, he was communicating with the Players. Had he been mistuned? It happened sometimes; people's vibes ended up a bit higher than usual and they saw things they weren't supposed to see. But this rarely extended further than the Noise Plane, and it rarely resulted in more than brief glimpses. Things people could pass off as figments of their own imaginations.

Most unusually, this boy not only saw the Players but seemed to know exactly what was going on. He stared, sternly, at the paired Players before sighing, extending a hand, and saying, "Oh, all right. Let me see your mission."

"Umm… okay," said one of the girls, as she extended her own hands towards the boy. Sanae didn't have to use his second sight to know what the boy would see: "Fill the lonely hearts, of cold Miyashita Park, with warm melodies." Not the Author's greatest work, but it was functional. Enough symbolic clichés to clue them into the mission without making it too obvious.

"Hmmm," said the boy. "Let's see... taiko, enka, concert, spring, ticket, Kawano Shiori. Any of that do anything?"

To the surprise of the Players, but evidently not to the boy, the pagers beeped. "Hey, look," said one of the girls. "There are other words now."

"Yeah," said the other girl, "but what do we do with it?"

"Imprint them, of course," said the boy. "But not on me. I have better things to do than listen to mediocre enka music."

The players did not respond to this.

"Have you not figured it out yet? The mission. They want you to get people to buy tickets to the concert happening tomorrow. Kawano Shiori, upcoming local star who would not be nearly as successful if Shibuya's boss wasn't so inexplicably dead-set on pushing her on everyone, will be holding a spring concert. There are ads all over the windows in that café, you know." The pagers beeped either for 'café' or 'window': the Players were supposed to pick up the surplus posters from WildKat and plaster them in windows throughout the rest of the city, though none seemed to have figured that out yet. "You should really be paying more attention to these things, you know. You're Players. Jumping into things without looking for clues could cost you your existences."

A brief pause, followed by a dubious "How in the world did _you_ know about that?" which was cut off by the other girl saying, "We'll try to do that. Thank you! Thank you so, so much!" The other girl murmured her reluctant agreement.

"You can thank me by learning the difference between the guitar and the violin." The boy dismissed them with a wave and they ran off, glancing at the ticking timers on their hands as they did so.

It was probably about time for Sanae to make his entrance.

"Hey!" he called out. The cat jumped off his lap and scurried away as he stood to wave at the boy. "You there!"

The boy jumped at the sound of his voice; he clearly hadn't counted on the presence of other people when deciding to speak to the Players. But he quickly removed the startled expression from his face and flashed a smooth smile, like he knew something Sanae didn't. "Yes, Mister?"

Sanae dusted off his pants, took just a step closer to the boy. He wasn't sure where to go with this, and he was sure it showed on the slightly awkward, but hopefully disarming smile on his face. "That was an interesting conversation I just witnessed, kid."

"Thank you," said the boy, smile unwavering. "I'm an actor, you see. I was practicing for a play."

"…Right," said Sanae, and he realized the kid thought he was from the living world. Which made sense, he supposed, looking at it from the kid's point of view. No one but the Author knew who he really was, and he was clearly lacking the wings that would mark him as a Reaper - or the panic that would mark him as a Player. As an Angel, Sanae could easily read people's vibe wavelengths to determine which plane they were native to, but it was possible that this child could see into the UG without seeing any of the mechanisms behind it. "Those two young ladies your co-actors? They're pretty good at actin' like scared Players."

He expected to see some embarrassment in response to that (he had just called him out on a lie, after all), or maybe some intimidation. Instead the boy's eyebrows merely rose in curiosity, and he tilted his head to one side. "You're a Reaper?"

"Not quite," Sanae said. He liked to avoid lying if he could, but he wasn't sure how to answer this question honestly without giving away classified information.

"Suicidal Player?" asked the boy. 'Suicidal' being the boy's attempt at explaining why he didn't have a partner with him, though it failed to explain why he was addressing the boy in the first place.

"No to both," said Sanae, with a smile.

The boy thought for a minute, looking him up and down, but saying nothing.

"You heard of the Author of Shibuya, kid?" Sanae asked.

The boy's eyes widened a bit; he opened his mouth but did not answer. A reaction like that made it clear that he _had_ heard of the Author, and that he was aware of both her power and the secrecy of her identity. Sanae chuckled a bit, raising a hand to the back of his neck. "Relax, kid. I ain't them. Only brought it up 'cause you seemed to be wonderin' about whether or not you should ask."

The boy frowned; he seemed displeased, but Sanae couldn't tell if that was because he'd been caught off-guard or because Sanae had read his body language. Humans all had their strange habits, but they usually weren't too difficult to analyze, once you learned what kinds of questions to ask. Of course, some people disliked being read more than others.

"You're on the same… same ground as me," said the boy.

"Yep," said Sanae. Which technically wasn't a lie. He wasn't _from_ the plane of the living, but he was tuned into it, currently.

"You can see it too?" the boy asked. "The… Game?"

"Sure can."

The kid stared at him for a moment, evaluating him with eyes that had been trained to absorb without reflecting. This boy did not like to show his emotions; an apathetic frown was held steady on his face. But Sanae could tell by the way his brow perked up, and how his shoulders relaxed, and the way he leaned towards Sanae ever so slightly, that Sanae had caught his attention.

It wasn't so hard to figure out what humans wanted to hear; even the guarded ones like this boy. You just had to see what they _didn't_ want to hear, and guess from there. The boy had revealed what he hadn't wanted to hear by his alarmed reaction to being seen speaking to Players. There were only so many underlying causes that could be behind that particular brand of self-consciousness.

"How long have you seen it?" the boy asked.

"Since I moved out here, I guess." It wasn't really a lie – Games could be observed from the Higher Plane, with effort, but Sanae had rarely observed them before taking on his job as a Producer. He definitely hadn't observed Shibuya's particular Game before he'd been assigned there.

"You don't see the Games in the other cities?"

So it looked like this boy knew that this didn't only happen in Shibuya. Sanae shrugged. "Bits and pieces, here and there. I saw some things sometimes, but never really put it together. Wasn't 'til I set up shop here that I started getting privy to all the details." That was pretty much a lie. Now he'd have to think up an explanation for it.

"You own this coffee shop?" the boy asked, finally removing his gaze from Sanae and turning a critical eye to the café windows, where the concert advertisement posters were hanging. His lips curled in disapproval. "You like Kawano Shiori."

Sanae laughed; the child hadn't even tried to hide the accusing tone in his voice. "It's called sponsorship, kiddo. I get money for letting people put ads in my shop." He decided against mentioning his actual opinion of the singer; he did like her, but music wasn't his area of expertise, and he was beginning to get the feeling that this boy wouldn't have much respect for opinions that differed from his own. "Say, why don't you come in for a minute? There are no other customers at the moment, and, well… this isn't generally the kind of thing I talk about out in the open."

The boy seemed to hesitate for a second, but after glancing at his watch he nodded and followed Sanae into the WildKat Café. "Mother will want me back by seven," he said. He stood in place by the entrance, glancing around the premises. "But I suppose I can talk for a little while."

Sanae went behind the counter to turn the coffee machine back on, if only to give himself something to do with his hands while they were talking. Might as well have a something to drink; his caffeine tolerance was so high it wouldn't be much of a problem to have a cup of coffee in the evening. Angels didn't need much sleep anyway. He looked back towards the boy, who had plopped down on one of the stools by the bar and set his violin on the countertop. "Coffee?" he offered.

The boy glanced up at the menu for a minute, then shrugged. "Why not?"

"Could take a minute," he said, retrieving the beans from the pantry. "I've already closed up shop for the day."

The boy nodded. Sanae turned his back to fill the grinder with roasted beans; he could feel the boy's curious eyes on him as he worked. "Got a name?" he called over the buzz.

"Kiryu Yoshiya," the boy said. "Friends and family call me Joshua."

"Joshua," Sanae repeated. "You Christian?"

"More or less."

Sanae chuckled a bit at what was essentially a concise summation of modern attitudes to religion in general. "More or less, huh?"

"I like the name. It suits me." The boy – Joshua – shifted in his seat. "I thought we were going to talk about the Game."

"…Right." Sanae paused the conversation for a few seconds to put the ground beans and the water into the drip machine, before turning back around to face the boy. "I'm Hanekoma Sanae, by the way. Nice to meet you, too."

Joshua said nothing in response to this.

Sanae sighed; capturing this boy's interest hadn't been too hard, but it seemed it would be a bit more challenging to win his respect. "So…" he said. "How long have you been seeing the Game?"

"Forever," said the boy. "Well… it was mostly the Noise at first. Sometime after I started school I started seeing… everything else."

That was surprising. He would've thought the Author of Shibuya would have known about this kind of anomaly, if it had been going on so long. Of course, he couldn't say that to the boy, so he questioned something else. "Noise?"

"…I mean Smears," he said, sinking into his seat. "Noise was what I used to call them, before I knew what they were. That word for them keeps popping into my head."

"Noise, huh?" Sanae repeated. "Interesting."

"But that's not important," Joshua said, shaking his head as if to shake the topic out of the way. "What do _you_ know? Are there others like us?"

"Not that I've met," said Sanae. "I mean… I'm sure there are people who see little things from time to time, but I've never met another person who could see the Game their whole life. …You _are_ alive, aren't ya?" It wasn't a particularly funny thing to say, but he laughed a bit anyway, just so the boy would know he wasn't serious.

"If I was a Player," the boy pointed out, "I would have completed the mission by now."

Sanae didn't call him out on the arrogance. "Right. You seem to know a lot – you knew just what to do to help those two girls."

"It's not like it's hard to figure out. The posters are all over the city. You'd have to be an idiot not to notice."

"Or someone who doesn't know what they're looking for," Sanae said fairly.

"What about you, then? Can _you_ solve the missions?"

"I solve them occasionally, yeah. Don't wanna risk being too helpful to the Players, though. I've heard the Author isn't too fond of people who mess with her Game." Hopefully the boy would take that as a warning and not a threat.

"And you know this _how_?" The boy's eyes focused on Sanae, and Sanae knew he wouldn't be able to get away with withholding information for much longer without the boy getting suspicious.

Sanae shrugged. "Same way as you know how to solve the Missions, I guess – listening to what Reapers and Players have to say."

The boy didn't respond right away, and Sanae figured now was as good a time as any to take the coffee from the drip machine – maybe it would be a little weak, but he needed a chance to pause and think of a story, and he doubted this child was much of a coffee connoisseur. He took the cream out of the fridge and the sugar out of the pantry, and poured a liberal serving of both into the boy's cup before filling his own. "Here," he said. He passed the boy his coffee across the counter before walking around and sitting down two seats away from Joshua's stool. "I guess I should tell you the story of how I found out about all this stuff." He took a swig of coffee, temperature be darned, before he continued. "It's been about… what, almost twenty years now?"

That got the boy's attention; he looked up at him, eyes peering through the steam rising from his coffee cup. It had actually been much longer since he'd come to Shibuya, but he doubted the boy would believe he moved to Shibuya to start his own business as a teenager, and he knew he couldn't pass for much older than forty. At the same time, he wanted the boy to know that he was knowledgeable, and he couldn't think of a way to convey that other than to let him know he'd been following the Game longer than the kid had been alive. Even if he had to lie about the specifics.

"Anyway," he continued, "this café is… a little special. …Have the Reapers told you anything about where the Game takes place?"

"It's still Shibuya," said the boy, "just a different… plane, right? I used to call it the Shibuya Underground… because it was like all this activity happening right under everyone's noses, but they couldn't see it."

It was technically _higher_ in vibe than the plane of the living, but that was a fair enough term for it. "…Right. It's a different plane. You got a word for the plane we're on?"

The boy hesitated for a second, and after taking a small sip of his coffee, said, "The… Real Ground. That's what I used to call it."

Which would imply that he used to think that the "Underground" wasn't real. Which certainly supported Sanae's earlier hypothesis about why the boy was not happy being seen talking to Players.

"Hmmm…" said Sanae. "That works. Anyway… this café is only place in Shibuya where the 'Underground' and the 'Realground' intersect."

The boy tilted his head. "Intersect?"

"Meaning what you see in the Real Ground is exactly what you see in the Underground. When Players come into this shop, everyone can see them."

The boy's head shot up; _that_ had certainly captured his interest, and Sanae hadn't even had to lie this time. Part of the point of being Producer was to learn to understand life as well as death, and he couldn't do that if he couldn't speak to both the living and the dead. So, with the Author's permission, he had painted a sigil on his shop which would lower the vibes of anyone entering it down to the RG level. It kept out Smears, too. "Of course, the Reapers don't generally advertise this to the Players – even the Reapers aren't supposed to know about it, really. Too many of them would take advantage. But some of Reapers figured out that they could come here while they were supposed to be on-duty, and I started noticing I was getting a lot of business from some pretty strange people. So I started talkin' to 'em."

"And they told you about the Game?" asked the boy.

He shrugged. "Not outright, usually, but I picked up on some things. And I guess spending too much time in the café had some kind of an effect on me, so after a while I could see the Game in the other parts of Shibuya, too." He hoped that would be believable. He didn't like lying, but he didn't have any other way of explaining himself to the boy without revealing his role in it all. Which he _really_ wasn't supposed to do.

The boy took a sip from his coffee, an obvious excuse to pause and think before he spoke. "I see," he finally said.

It looked like he believed the lie, at least. Not that he would have had much of a reason not to, probably – the kid probably didn't have the slightest idea of why he himself could see the Game, so why wouldn't he believe Sanae's explanation? It was nonsensical to anyone who understood how vibes and planes worked, but this kid didn't seem to know anything more about that than the average Reaper.

"I've always known about the Game," said the boy. "I used to think it was common knowledge that sometimes people just – disappeared in the middle of the street. It must have been startling for someone like you to witness it for the first time." He giggled, cupping his hand over his mouth politely.

"Sure was," said Sanae, smiling just enough to humor the kid. "Luckily by then I'd heard enough from the Reapers to know who to go to with my questions."

"They never speak to me," Joshua said. He stared absently at his coffee cup for a moment before his eyes flickered into focus and he turned back to Sanae. "Do you think if someone else went to this café a lot, they'd start seeing the Game, too?"

And that was why Sanae didn't like lying; people always pried in ways he didn't anticipate. He put a hand behind his neck and chuckled a bit. "It would have to be quite a bit of time," he said. "I do have regulars, and as far as I know none of them see anything out of the ordinary. Besides, I did see little glimpses of the Game even before I came here. Not sure if your average Joe can do that, so maybe it's some kind of natural potential I had in the first place, and being in this place just brought it out."

"Oh." Joshua slouched back against the bar, drumming his fingers across his coffee cup for a few seconds before looking back at Sanae and asking, "What kinds of glimpses?"

"Oh, you know. Sometimes I saw glimpses of monsters – Smears, I mean, but they're not called that in every town – but I figured they were just my imagination. Saw a few Reapers, too, but I always figured the wings were just decoration."

"I see." Joshua pressed his coffee cup up against his lips, not quite managing to conceal the grin twitching on the corners of his mouth. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, but the crinkles in his eyelids and slope of his brow revealed his eager curiosity. Sanae had better change the subject before the boy risked asking a question that Sanae's creativity couldn't keep up with. Besides, he'd invited him in to get information, not to impress him with stories.

"Say, how old are you anyway?" asked Sanae.

He glanced back, and hesitated a moment before answering. "Twelve," he finally said, still looking at Sanae as if awaiting a justification for the question.

"And you say you've been seeing the Game – _this_ Game, Shibuya's Game – your whole life?"

"Of course I have," the boy said. "I was born in Shibuya, you know." He said that like it should have somehow been obvious.

"Hmm," said Sanae. An anomaly like this had been in Shibuya for twelve years and the Author didn't seem aware of it. That was strange.

"Why are you asking?" asked the boy, looking Sanae in the eye with a strange sort of sternness. …Sanae had been assuming the boy had been telling the truth, mostly because he couldn't think of a real reason to lie; but he supposed he couldn't just take the kid's word on something so difficult to believe. He'd have to scan.

"Ah, no reason," he said. His voice trailed off at the end as he switched his focus from what he could see with his physical eyes to the level of existence beyond that – vibes and Soul and Imagination. The boy's Soul was vibrant and unusually diverse – which could explain why he could see what he did. …The boy could apparently notice when he was being imprinted on, so Sanae probably shouldn't risk sending him any messages to prompt him to think about what he wanted to know, but he shouldn't realize he was being scanned. Sanae let his Imagination flow out from his own body, tugging at the membrane of Soul encircling the boy's thoughts –

And the Soul snapped back like a rubber band, repelling him forcefully. Startled, Sanae tuned his focus back into the physical world to find the boy was staring at him bewilderedly. For a moment he thought the boy must have somehow noticed him prying before he realized he had visibly flinched.

"Ah – sorry," Sanae said. "Had a twitch in my head. Too much caffeine, I guess." So, the kid had a block over his thoughts. They weren't terribly uncommon, especially in more guarded personalities, but they were usually easier to bypass than that. It was strange; normally people who couldn't be scanned couldn't be imprinted on, either. This kid was just all kinds of unusual, wasn't he?

"Right…" said the boy, glancing first at his half-empty coffee cup and then at his wrist, upon which was a golden watch, unusually nice-looking to be owned by a preteen boy. "…I should probably go now. It'll start to get dark soon."

"Right," said Sanae.

The boy didn't break eye contact as he slinked off the stool and got his violin case down from the counter. He was moving a little bit slowly for someone in a hurry to get home, and Sanae realized he was waiting to see just how interested Sanae was in continuing to speak to him.

…Which might be a problem. The boy had upped his defenses, just slightly but perceptibly, when Sanae had asked his age. Meaning too much interest might make him suspicious. On the other hand, he wanted the kid to know that he was welcome back. That he was _wanted_ back.

"Got 520 yen?" Sanae asked.

"What?"

Sanae gestured towards the coffee, then nodded towards the price list behind the counter.

"You're _charging_ me for this?" the boy looked at his coffee distastefully. "It's weak, and too sweet. It tastes like boiling sugar water."

Sanae chuckled a bit at that; apparently the kid was a bit more of a coffee connoisseur than he'd thought. He should've known not to let the quality slip just because he was dealing with a kid. "I'll gladly remake it for you, but first you gotta pay."

The boy scowled – well, it was more like a pout, on his childlike face – as he dug in his pockets for change. "I don't have any money on hand," he said. "You should have told me the cost ahead of time."

"It's on the menu back there," Sanae said, smiling. "But hey, don't worry about it – you can bring me the money tomorrow. I won't even charge you interest. Deal?"

"How generous," Joshua said sarcastically. He was still pouting. "Fine. I'll pay you later." With that, he hoisted his violin up and turned to leave the café.

"Nice meeting you, Joshua," Sanae called out after him, cheerfully, as the doors swung shut behind him.

Well, that had gone well enough, he thought, as he picked up a stack of concert posters. It was about time for him to close up shop, but he should leave the posters outside, so the Players could get to them later. He was interested in finding out more information on this boy. The child didn't seem to know what to think about Sanae – he was interested, that was for sure, but slightly suspicious, and definitely not pleased about having to pay for the coffee. But at least he'd be back.

For now, though, Sanae would have to report this to the Author.

* * *

"So, you've met the Kiryu boy," said the Author. She was sitting in seiza position at the low table, sipping at her tea, her femininity and elegance accented by her radiating form.

Sanae took the seat opposite her, giving a slight bow of both greeting and thanks as she procured a cup of tea for him. "So you _do_ know about him." He wasn't too surprised. Not much in Shibuya got past the Author. "If you don't mind me asking, why didn't you bring it up before?"

"I never saw a reason to. There are anomalies in every population, every imaginable sort – but in the end it's not the anomalies, that create true beauty, but the less striking individuals, pieced together to make a whole." She smiled good-naturedly. "Of course, I can tell from your art that your philosophy isn't quite the same as mine. But I digress. I've known about Kiryu for quite some time. He's quite the nuisance – has a habit of trying to manipulate my Game from the outside. At first, the worst he did was pester my Reapers for information, but it seems the more he sates his curiosity, the less satisfied he becomes with how I run things."

"So he's a problem?" Sanae asked cautiously. "Problem" being a euphemism for "target to be eliminated."

"Yes," said the Author, "but there isn't anything to be done about it. He's in the world of the living, and I don't get to decide what happens to those Souls – not unless I have to. And I don't have to, in peaceful times like this. My own annoyance is not sufficient cause to meddle with another world… though I do wish he'd show my world the same courtesy."

"You want me to talk to him? Tell him to leave the Players alone?"

"You can try, but I think he does what he wants." She smiled good-humoredly. "Not even imprinting phases him much."

"So. No action to be taken, then?" asked Sanae.

The Author put down her tea cup and looked Sanae in the eye – her own eyes were nothing but shadows contrasting the rest of her bright silhouette, but Sanae was familiar with them. He'd learned her body language well enough to see the tinges of affection in the piercing stare and the upward crinkle of her lips, further creasing her wrinkled face. "Sanae. Haven't you heard that curiosity killed the cat?" She shook her head in mock-exasperation. "No, Sanae, no further action is required, but you are welcome to converse with the boy if you see fit. I do believe that interacting with the living was part of your reason for coming here, was it not? Study him as much as you want. Just don't tell him anything he doesn't already know."

"…Yes, ma'am," Sanae smiled, a bit sheepishly. The Author had always teased him for his habit of taking interest in particular humans – Producers were supposed to care about humanity, but forming relationships with individuals was strange, and so was Sanae's habit of seeking out people who were unusual in some way and talking to them until he found out what made them so. Angels valued people for their similarities, not their differences. District monarchs usually shared a similar mentality – especially those who had seen as much bloodshed as the Author had. Sanae supposed it was comforting for them, to always remind themselves that death gave way to new life, that those who no longer existed visibly could be recoded and recycled into similar beings with similar roles. But Sanae didn't have the same worldview. Sure, he couldn't preserve any individual forever, but there was no reason not to enjoy their company while they were there.

"He lives in the Shoto area, if you're curious," said the Author, referring to Sanae's Second Sight. "I've… seen him die. My clairvoyance tells me what happens when he enters the Plane of the Dead, but nothing after."

"Oh," said Sanae. It was a warning – don't get attached, because he'd die, and she couldn't guarantee he'd exist long after that.

"His Imagination is quite high. He's got a striking Soul – elegant, but bold."

"I could see that," said Sanae, remembering the vibrant walls hiding the boy's thoughts.

With one final sip of tea, the Author set her cup down and smiled widely. "The week he dies – _that_ , Sanae, will surely be an interesting Game."


	2. Chapter 2

Joshua stood in the doorway of the psychologist's office, having entered only after she'd told him to come in and proceeded to ignore about five iterations of "You can close the door" before the doctor had given up and closed it herself. "Take a seat," she told him, so he'd taken the seat and dragged it over to the bookshelf full of trinkets and old textbooks. A picture of a family on a beach, besides a framed anecdote about a little boy throwing drying-up starfish back into the ocean. New Years cards dating back two or three years. Self-help books. Nothing all that notable.

Joshua did not like to talk about his feelings. But like everything else he didn't like, he had his own way of dealing with it: making it into a game.

Current mission: obtain as many different psychiatric diagnoses as possible. He collected diagnoses like decorative pins, trying on new collections of quirks with each new doctor.

"You're Yoshiya, right?" the young doctor asked, smiling in that awkward "please be nice to me" type way. "Can I call you by your first name?"

"Yes," said Joshua.

"Right… well then, you can sit down and make yourself comfortable if you want."

She didn't introduce herself. Probably assumed he'd bothered to remember her name.

"Or you can keep standing, if that's more comfortable."

Joshua gave the shelf another lookover before going to examine the calligraphy hanging on the other side of the wall.

"So, Yoshiya, did your mother tell you why you're here?"

"Yes," said Joshua.

"And can you tell me why you're here?"

"Yes," said Joshua.

She looked at him, waiting for an explanation that he had no intention of giving. He did not like to talk about himself.

"…Tell me why you're here," she finally said, apparently realize that he wasn't going to respond to anything but direct questions. He couldn't be _totally_ unresponsive, of course. He'd tried that before, and it had only gotten him labeled as "uncooperative" and in trouble with his parents. Responding to direct requests, but ignoring social cues was _much_ more fun. See what the psychologist could make of that.

"Hmmm," said Joshua, as he continued to examine the artwork on the walls. "I believe it was an accident at the time, but as my parents were already married, and financially stable enough, there was really no reason to have an abortion."

Perhaps it was a cliché way of misinterpreting that particular question, but it worked well enough; he turned his head away to hide his smirk as the psychologist stared at him in confusion for a moment before a lightbulb seemed to turn on over her head. Not that she let on that she had been confused. "I see," she said, "and how do you feel about that?"

"Completely apathetic."

"Has your relationship with your parents ever felt strained?"

Joshua remembered being a child, unable to sleep, Noise in his bedroom – they used to give him nightmares, before he'd learned how to block them out. He'd gone outside and down the street with his violin practicing Pachelbel's Canon so he could play it at the recital – music soothed him, and being calm made him less appetizing to the monsters. But a few minutes later his dad was storming towards him, snatching up the violin with one hand and pulling him by the ear with the other, yelling at him about making his parents look neglectful for letting their kid out at night. The music had woken up the neighbors, and the neighbors had called his parents. And the whole time the Noise were _swarming,_ feasting off the only household where anyone was awake enough to be angry at this time of night, and then his father had locked up his violin in the safe and made Joshua call his teacher to cancel his part in the upcoming recital.

"…Yes," said Joshua.

But things were better now. He could keep the Noise out on his own; they didn't even realize he was there.

"How did you feel about your mother bringing you to my office?"

What was there to feel? She as an individual was new to him, but he knew the situation well enough by now. She'd try to dissect him, so she could put him back together as something else. When he was nine years old he'd let them know who he really was; he'd told them everything he saw and when he saw it and compliantly taken the pills to make the Noise go away. But they didn't go away. It was more like _he_ was the one being sent away, banished to a foggy place where his senses were dulled and his head was moving so much more slowly than the world around him. The monsters were still there, but with the pills, he no longer had the energy to sidestep them. It was miserable. Until he started washing the medicine down the sink.

"Being brought here was better than walking," he said, after a moment.

An hour later the psychiatrist was speaking to his mother about her theories that Joshua's mind had invented his psychiatric delusions as a subconscious mechanism for soliciting attention and affection from his parents and thus reassure his inner-self that his existence was meaningful. A fairly amusing analysis. Normally he'd listen outside the door, but this time he took his violin and left the building.

His mother had thought it was strange when he'd come to her with a phonebook advertisement on psychologists, claiming he didn't think his current one was working out, but he had high hopes for the young "Dr. Shirotsuchi" who specialized in adolescents with emotional issues. He'd said he thought he might get along better with a psychologist that made an effort to relate to her prepubescent patients. His mother had believed him.

Of course, Joshua had thought nothing of the sort – Dr. Shirotsuchi was as wrong about him as they all had been – but there was one good thing about her. Her office was on Cat Street. Joshua went nearly every day now, and he was tired of going so far out of his way all the time.

He found Mr. Hanekoma sitting on the stoop in front of the cafe entrance, playing with the stray cats. One was sitting on his lap, kneading at his legs while Hanekoma scratched its head. It was almost embarrassing to watch him, a grown man talking to kittens like they were old friends, and the most uncomfortable thing about it was the fact that if Hanekoma realized how ridiculous he looked, he didn't show it. Joshua could appreciate, even admire, defiance of convention - but you had to know the rules if you were going to break them effectively. "That's unsanitary," he said as he approached.

"Humans can't get sick from cats," said Hanekoma. He removed his hand from the kitten and used it to balance his weight as he leaned back and looked up at Joshua. "Don't you have piano lessons on Fridays?"

He used to have piano lessons on Fridays, but he had to change his schedule in order to meet with Dr. Shirotsuchi, since she only had an opening on Fridays. Luckily, his piano teacher liked him enough to accommodate. "I'm taking private lessons instead now," Joshua said, "on Mondays."

"Ah, congrats," said Hanekoma. "That reminds me - I got something to show you. Come on inside." He shook his leg to prompt the now-sleeping cat to jump off and stood up, brushing his hands on his slacks.

Hanekoma held the door open politely, and Joshua entered the cafe to see an old, dusty piano in the corner where the aquarium used to be. Joshua approached it, running his fingers along the scratched-up surface before sitting down on wobbly bench in front of it. He pressed a few keys. "It needs to be tuned," he stated. "How did you get this?"

"Neighbor had a moving sale. It was pretty cheap! Pain in the ass to move, though." Hanekoma smiled. "I thought you might wanna practice here some time. Liven up the atmosphere."

"Why bother with that? It's not like there's ever anyone here. And besides, practice isn't particularly enjoyable to listen to, anyway. I only work on one song at a time. Line by line. And this would be a distracting place to practice, anyway."

"It was just an offer," said Hanekoma, throwing up his hands in mock-surrender. "Do me a favor and play me something, anyway? Went through the trouble to get it here; someone might as well use it at least once."

Joshua considered this for a moment before nodding and starting to play. After a few twangy notes he again muttered, "It needs to be tuned," but he kept playing. Pachelbel's Canon, his old favorite, which he used to practice over and over. He didn't have to think about it anymore, this was the song his fingers found when his mind wandered. But that kind of familiarity drained away the affection, and it was now difficult to put any real feeling into it.

"Nice job." Hanekoma sounded genuinely impressed when he was done. "You got some real talent, kiddo."

"Thanks," Joshua muttered - it wasn't anything he wasn't used to hearing. His extended family was always particularly impressed on the rare occasions they heard him play - who knew the problem child of the family had actual talent? Sure, his parents spoke of his achievements all the time, but everyone knew their bragging was just an excuse to not talk about the fact that he suffered purgatorial hallucinations.

"I'm serious," Hanekoma said, as if reading his mind. "I know that wasn't all that impressive from your point of view - you're not at a recital, you're using a beat-up piano, it wasn't your best work - but it takes a lot of effort and dedication to be able to play like _that_ when you're not really trying."

"...Right," Joshua said, just a little more sincere this time. He pivoted on his seat to face away from the piano and sighed. "I'm rather tired of piano lessons, to be perfectly honest."

"Why?" asked Hanekoma.

Joshua looked at him warily, wondering why he'd bothered to bring it up, and if it would be worth it to try to explain. He'd come to talk about the Game, after all. But it wasn't like he had any reason to keep it to himself. "They're boring."

"I thought you liked music."

"I'm not bored of music, I'm bored of _lessons_. They're pointless. I _know_ how to play piano. The only thing my teacher does is tell me what songs to practice for recitals, which no one even goes to except the other kids' parents. And it's not like I have a career in music, anyway – everyone in the world learns how to play piano, everyone learns the same classical songs - there's no room to do anything different. I could write my own songs, but no one would want to hear them, because no one _really_ likes classical music, they only pretend to so they can seem smart, and my music wouldn't be worth pretending to like, as I was not born in Europe in the 1700s." He crossed his arms. "It's so annoying, hearing people rave about Mozart, when you know they only like him because the concept of sophistication tells them to."

Hanekoma looked thoughtful. "What if you found a different teacher? Someone who'd let you expand your horizons a little? Play the stuff you wanna play?"

"That would never happen - Miss Nakahara is an old family friend; she taught my mother when she was a child. She'd be offended if I switched to another teacher, and Mother would never allow for that."

"I see. I take it quitting's not an option for the same reason?"

"That, and because when I'm having lessons, I'm not watching the Game," said Joshua. His voice got quieter as he spoke, having started wondering mid-sentence why he was even talking about this. His home life was unimportant, his relationship with his parents was nothing more but a performance. As long as he said his lines properly, they left him mostly alone.

None of this was relevant to Hanekoma, but he'd captured the man's curiosity. "Your mother knows about the Game?" the man asked.

"...When I was a child, I didn't exactly understand that not everyone saw monsters," Joshua said. "I think my parents used to think I was just playing pretend, so they went along with it. There used to be a Pig Smear that lived around our house that would follow me around sometimes. I called it Bubu. My mother thought it was an imaginary friend, so she pretended she could see it, and I thought she could. Then one day some Players passed through my neighborhood, and, well… Bubu became bacon bits." Joshua smirked at his own dark joke.

"That's... harsh," said Hanekoma.

"It was a long time ago." Joshua brushed off the sympathy. "In hindsight, it's almost funny. Actually, that's another thing I'd been wanting to ask you about."

"Oh?" Hanekoma was leaning against the piano, hands crossed in front of him, as he peered down at Joshua. There was something uncomfortable about the intensity of his gaze - Hanekoma, Joshua had noticed, was one of those people who could see through the social pleasantries and stoic personas everyone put up and peg someone for exactly who they really were.

"All those Pig Smears… what's the purpose of them? It's usually Reapers that make Smears, right? And they make them to erase Players. But Pigs aren't aggressive. So, why create them?"

Hanekoma's tilted his chin back, his thinking pose. "Hmm. Well, I'm not so sure it's always – or even usually - Reapers that create Smears."

Joshua tilted his head. "Who else, then? Do you mean the Author?"

"No. Well, maybe. But I don't know if anyone really has to _create_ them. I mean, I always see those things around whether there's a Game going on or not. So, if they were only around to erase Players, that wouldn't make much sense."

"True…" Joshua agreed. "But where do they come from, then?"

Hanekoma shrugged. "Same place they come from when the Reapers make them, I'm guessing. Maybe sometimes, if the right ingredients get mixed together, it'll always end up making something, and Reapers only control the particular something it makes."

"Hmmm," said Joshua. He pulled the cover down over the piano keys and put his school bag over the counter, retrieved, from the crevice between his geometry textbook and bilingual edition of _Julius Caesar_ , his unmarked but well-worn notebook. He placed it down in front of him, open… and stared blankly at it, writing nothing.

"You don't agree with me?" Hanekoma asked.

"It's not that I don't agree. It's that I don't have proof," said Joshua.

"Hmm? I haven't ever been able to give ya proof, have I? I have no idea how I'd go about proving any of the stuff we talk about."

In response, Joshua flipped the notebook back to older pages, pages written with slightly less kanji than he currently knew, in slightly less-refined handwriting. Some of the older notes had recently been marked with yellow highlighter, still fresh and bright. Some lines, though not many, had been colored over with dark red marker, leaving the text visible only if one squinted.

When Joshua had first met Mr. Hanekoma, he'd actively dreamed of being a composer. He always had and still did dream of many things – nearly every occupation he encountered, he could think of a way that he could do it better than the adults did. But composing had been the thing he _really_ wanted to do. He'd once had another notebook like this, filled with musical notes rather than text, instrumental pieces inspired by the classical compositions he cherished so much.

But that was when, though he never would have thought so at the time, he was still naïve. He hadn't known how the world worked, how truly impossible such a thing would be. There would never be a concert hall full of admiring people, awestruck by his work.

But there were other things he _could_ do.

Gradually, before he'd ever noticed a shift in his daydreams, he'd found himself envying the Author's job. The one enigma who neither he nor Hanekoma knew anything of beyond his or her existence. But Joshua saw what the Author did, how they not only shaped the Game but used the Game to shape Shibuya. He thought of all the people who came to Shibuya every day, all the things he loved about his hometown, all the things he would change if he could.

And he'd begun to think a city full of admirers would be even better than a concert hall.

He knew he wasn't ready for such a thing yet, of course. He didn't see this as a problem, any more than he had seen it as a problem that he was still a child, back when he'd wanted to be a composer. It simply meant he had his whole life to prepare. Who else got the chance to prepare for the Game while still alive? He saw it as a great advantage.

That didn't mean he wanted to waste time on theories that might not be correct, though. He'd been a more careful observer these days, thorough in tracking what he knew to be true, what he could guess, and what data had led to his conclusions.

"I know," said Joshua. "I've been using you to help me come up with hypotheses. I can devise the experiments to test them myself."

Hanekoma laughed at that. "I'm not sure if the Game works well with our understanding of science, Josh."

"No, really? I could have sworn I've seen something in my biology book about the evolution of Pig Smears," said Joshua sarcastically. "I know that, Mr. Hanekoma, but where the scientific _theories_ don't quite mesh, I see no reason not to apply to scientific _method_."

Hanekoma laughed again. "Lemme know how your experiments turn out."

Joshua knew he was being brushed off. It bothered him just slightly, but he was used to not being taken seriously and he knew it was for the best, this time. Hanekoma Sanae may have been much less disappointing than most adults, but there was one way in which he still tried to irrationally shelter Joshua – he refused to talk about the Author. From the way Sanae always deflected the subject, Joshua knew that Hanekoma knew something Joshua didn't… and that, too, bothered him, but was no great obstacle in the grand scheme of things. Someday, Joshua would find out. He had plenty of time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Oh, look, a new chapter. Nothing actually happens in it, though.**

 **Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.**

It turned out, kittens loved Angel feathers. He supposed they loved feathers, in general, but with the way this fluffy white one was tormenting the fallen feather, one would think there was catnip involved.

"Easy there, Marshmallow! I think you already killed it."

The kitten's response to this was to roll over onto his side, grasping the treasure with all four of its paws.

"Marshmallow? Didn't you already _have_ a cat named Marshmallow?"

Sanae looked up from where he was squatting on the cement to see Joshua approaching, book bag slung over his shoulders as usual. "Hey, Josh!" he said.

He was happy to see him. He didn't see him as often as he had when they'd first met, three years ago. Joshua's facial features were a bit softer than those of most other boys his age, but they were more developed than they had been. He was a few centimeters taller, too, and his voice a bit deeper.

It was interesting, seeing someone grow. Angels grew in their own way; Players, Reapers, and even Authors did likewise, but none like the living. Their bodies changed so fast as this age, but the development of the soul was completely independent of that.

Joshua's living body was growing and thriving.

His soul was a different thing all together.

Joshua, never being one to squat on the ground, instead perched atop the handrail of the small flight of steps leading up to the back entrance of the café. Joshua was more confident now, at least outwardly – the traces of self-consciousness that had once been readily detectable on his preteen self were nearly vanquished by now. Sanae liked to think he had done the kid some good. Having someone to talk to, someone who "shared his predicament" had eased his self-doubt. Before, there had always been some part of him that wondered if his mother and everyone else were right to think there was something wrong with him. Joshua hadn't said as much, of course, and Sanae still hadn't scanned him – but he knew it, anyway, because that's just how people were. People were social creatures, and other people's opinions tended to win out over logic and perception in the influence of their peers' beliefs. Joshua was more stubborn than most, but he was still only human.

"Do you just name every white cat Marshmallow?" he asked.

Sanae chuckled a bit absently. "Ain't my cats to name. 'Marshmallow' is more of a nickname, really."

"Hmm. How unoriginal," Joshua complained.

"Guilty as charged," Sanae admitted.

After all, it hardly seemed worth it to bestow on each short-lived street cat its own unique moniker.

There was a lull, in which Joshua let his poor mood be known by his silence, and in which Sanae tried to subtly teach him a lesson on the futility of trying to get what you want without communicating it by continuing to hum to himself pleasantly, before he gave up and said, "So. What's on your mind, kiddo?"

Joshua sighed, crossed his arms and said sulkily, "A near-endless medley of problems that would be of little interest to anyone besides myself."

"They'd probably be of interest to me," Sanae offered.

"No, they wouldn't. They're very mundane, human problems. Very little to do with the Game."

"Human problems can be interesting," Sanae said honestly. "There's more to life than the Game." Joshua was the one who brought the subject up nearly every time he visited. But even that was only partially due to his own interest, and partially due to his need to put on a pretense for social interaction. He had not wanted to admit to enjoying Sanae's company for his own sake, though Sanae could tell he did enjoy his company, and relied on him for more than just the reassurance of his sanity. Sanae had played along at first, but it had been far too long to keep pretending they weren't friends.

Joshua's hands fell to his sides, fists clenched in a way he didn't realize was a tell that he was genuinely sad about something. Sanae let his light-hearted demeanor drop just a tad.

"Mother's upset," said Joshua, "because my piano teacher is in the hospital again."

"Again, huh?" Sanae asked sympathetically. "Your piano teacher was your mother's piano teacher too, right? That must be hard on her."

"I could understand, if she was just worried," said Joshua. "But she keeps taking it out on me."

Sanae raised an eyebrow. "Taking it out on you?" From what Joshua had said of his mother, she was the overbearing type, but not the harsh type.

"She's being a real… what's the word? Control freak." Joshua smiled in slight embarrassment at having used a slang term that a normal teenager would use. "She's like this every time she gets stressed. Being at home is a nightmare, and she won't give me any permission to leave. I know I'm going to get an earful as soon as I get home, but I couldn't stand being there. The Smears are swarming the place."

"That's rough," Sanae said. He found it interesting that Joshua would mention Smears. Smears didn't usually bother Joshua, the boy claimed, and Sanae had found it to be true. Even if he was in a foul mood – which was more and more frequent these days – they ignored him, as though they didn't see him. Sanae suspected it had something to do with Joshua's natural guards against being scanned. He didn't let anyone see inside him.

But no child likes seeing his mother upset. And no child likes seeing his mother's soul being fed on by monsters.

"How is your father?" Sanae asked.

Joshua shrugged. "Too busy to be of any help with Mother. He's in the middle of moving his company to a new office building, which for some reason means he's required to stay out all the time 'past midnight with his colleagues and potential landlords."

"That's not unusual."

"No."

"But it's bothering your mother?"

Joshua didn't answer. He yawned, stretched back a bit, almost as though he were adjusting his mask of nonchalance. By the time he was done yawning, his usual smirk was back. "I'm not here to talk about this. I want to talk about the Game. Which players do you think are going to win this time, hmm?"

"The Game. Of course. Sure, Josh." The admonishment in his voice was just subtle enough that the boy could pretend not to hear it.

* * *

Joshua felt like he was dying. Sometimes, he thought he was more dead than the Players.

After all, "death" was a misunderstood concept created by the living, ordinary living who had never seen the Game. They didn't know what it was like. They thought death was the disintegration of the body, the sense of loss, the disappearance of identity.

Joshua felt as though he'd lost his identity.

It had been necessary. A survival mechanism. Everyone already thought there was something wrong with him. If he stopped play-acting, they'd send him off to the looney bin. He knew what mental health facilities were like – he did his research the first time he'd overheard his discuss the possibility of sending him to one. There was no individuality there. There were no streets to wander to get away from prying, analyzing eyes – the eyes would be everywhere. There'd be no piano, no violin; they'd even confiscate his collectible pins as "sharp objects." Nowhere to spit out the medication that would be forced down his throat. They wouldn't let him out until they were completely fooled, and then the threat would always be over his head, that he'd have to go back if he slipped up.

He would never be the same person again.

But then, the threat was already there and he still sometimes feared he'd suppressed himself badly enough to affect his Imagination. He'd overheard enough Players to know that he couldn't be scanned, and he suspected it was because he'd compressed his Soul down into a tiny, hidden lump. And yes, that was melodramatic but fittingly so, and there was nothing wrong with being melodramatic as long as you kept it in your own head where no one else would learn of your weakness, provided once you were done with your angst-ing you _did_ something about it.

As the scent of fresh bread and the calming melody of Kawano Shiori's newest _enka_ ballad wafted from the kitchen, Joshua's mother was being consumed by Smears. Joshua could barely even see her, she was so obscured the ink-blot monsters covering her like flies on an old carcass, savoring her misery.

"Where were you, Joshua?" She was trying to keep that misery from manifesting in her voice.

"Cat Street," he said, with a nonchalance that had become second-nature.

"The café. Right." She crosses her arms and the Smears multiplied. She was going to confront him about it, of course. He knew he shouldn't have let it slip that the "friend" he kept meeting there was actually the barista, but he was just so tired of living a dual life. It was necessary to keep secrets most of the time, but sometimes he enjoyed letting a bit of truth slip out, so he could see others' reactions to his authentic self.

"Listen, Joshua… I'm not going to forbid you from going there, but wouldn't it be best if you could also make some friends your own age? Maybe you could invite someone over from the Music Club."

He smiled. "To do what? Practice music like we already do after school? Should that be before or after the practice I already do by myself? None of them can even keep up with me, anyway. Or do you mean to socialize? Because I'm so popular…"

"Yes, to socialize," his mother said. Oddly, the mass of Smears around her shrunk just a little bit. Perhaps this conversation was distracting her from what she was really worried about. "You could certainly make friends if you put in the effort! You're smart, you're handsome – "

"And 'insane', Mother, don't forget 'insane', according to my peers. And you. That's what most people see as a deal-breaker, I'd say. I don't think I could make friends, even if I wanted to. But I don't want to."

She looked stung, as though he'd just insulted her instead of himself. "You're not insane, Joshua."

"No? You don't think so? Why are you sending me to Dr. Shirotsuchi every week, then? Is this a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy?" A grin spread across his face; it was an amusing comment, if only his mother could appreciate it.

"I don't think you're insane, Joshua, I just think you need help."

Joshua started going up the stairs towards his room, but his mother followed him, instead of sighing and staying in the kitchen as she normally did. He must have really bothered her. He turned back and faced her.

"No, you don't think I'm insane? Then you should believe me when I say there are about a dozen monsters called Smears consuming small amounts of your Soul at this very moment. They feed off negative energy, you know, so I can tell you're very upset."

The dismay on her face hurt just a little, but he grinned when he saw it anyway.

"You know," he said, and as an idea hit him he let his mask of apathy slip just a bit, "perhaps it's you who should be seeing Dr. Shirotsuchi. I know, I know, you'd have to lie about it, maybe even to Father – but she might actually be of help to someone with mundane problems like yours. But for someone with the 'problem' of being one of two people in Shibuya who can see the dead? Not so helpful. She's out of her depth with me. I suppose it isn't her fault." But, having said his piece and knowing his mother would never consider it without her having to say so, he turned and marched up the stairs to his room.

* * *

There was so little Joshua could do. Not now, anyway. He just had to be patient, and persevere. He had to keep learning and growing all he could while he was alive.

So when his chance came for him to have his freedom… he could take it.


End file.
